Orton, Turner get in sync

November 02, 2005|By K.C. Johnson, Tribune staff reporter.

Bears fans could be forgiven for thinking they either were hallucinating or watching film from Ron Turner's previous stint as offensive coordinator during the second quarter of Sunday's overtime victory in Detroit.

Kyle Orton completed 10 of 13 passes for 176 yards and a touchdown, including six connections of 13 yards or more.

George Wendt, as one of the Superfans from "Saturday Night Live," could easily tell you that projects to Orton going 40-for-52 for 704 yards and four touchdowns over four quarters.

Those fantastic and fantasy numbers would represent a good three-game stretch for Orton in the way the current Bears need to approach games: Run the football, don't turn it over and dominate defensively.

But the second quarter of the Detroit game featured a dynamic Bears management considers a strong subplot to its first-place success: a growing comfort level and confidence between Turner and Orton.

"It's not like we had an old quarterback who's new to the coach," general manager Jerry Angelo said. "We had a new quarterback who's new to us with a coordinator who's new as well.

"Ron has done a fine job in terms of evaluating Kyle: `What can he do? I know what I want to do within the framework of my scheme, but how much can he absorb? And what do I have to adjust in terms of my scheme?'

"It's very hard for coaches sometimes to adjust their scheme around a player. That's not always a layup. That's something Ron is doing and starting to do very well."

With Thomas Jones off to such a strong start and run-stuffing lineman Shaun Rogers out for Detroit, conventional wisdom suggested the Bears would try to pound the football.

Then the game started. Turner's first four calls were pass plays.

"We thought they'd have the safety up, eight guys in the box trying to stop the run," Turner said. "We felt we had to make some plays.

"Some of them were `check-with-me,' run-pass checks. But we wanted to be aggressive."

Orton slowed considerably and finished 17-for-31 for 230 yards and a touchdown against Detroit. And the final tally showed the balance that has been defining Turner's play-calling this season: 31 passes against 29 runs.

But given that Orton has five touchdown passes against just one interception in his last 136 attempts and Turner is homing in on his strengths, look for the Bears to continue to seek balance. That way, teams can't simply stack the line to stop the run.

"At the end of the day, we're going to run the football," coach Lovie Smith said. "But you have to mix that up and keep them off balance. Rogers was out, but [cornerback] Dre' Bly was out also. There were some things in the secondary that we thought we could attack. And we had four passes over 20 yards, first time we've done that.

"I thought Kyle played his best game. He hit some big throws when we needed them."

Orton suggested that the Bears left plenty of yards on the field, and his two glaring overthrows of Muhsin Muhammad would seem to support him. Orton and Muhammad used the words "real close" in talking about the passing game, which might be the most in sync the pair has been of late.

That's Turner's next task--to get Orton and Muhammad connecting.

"It's like a marriage," Smith said. "The marriage normally gets better as you've been around each other a little bit. It takes a while with everything, but I see Ron and Kyle working well together."

Never better than in that second quarter against Detroit.

"He got on a roll," Turner said. "I thought he got a little confidence. When somebody gets hot, you want to ride him.

"We're doing some good things. We have to work on our consistency. That's probably pretty typical of any new offense or new system, especially with a rookie quarterback. But I think each week we're getting better."